By using a character (Astro Cat) to engage with the children user. Uses fruits to describe how different the sizes of the planets are. There are true or false questions which makes this app aiming for the older children age. (unless if I can use a recorded audio to guide the user example: Tap the blue square if Yes and tap the red square if No.)

Calculating your Earth age into Mercury age is quite cool too. if you are 8 years old in Earth but in Mercury you are 36 years old.

enables you to pick a planet and user will be zoomed into the planet. Descriptions of asteroids, spacecraft and a “Flight mode” which enable the user to fly in the space similar to a spacecraft. The reference this application used is wikipedia probably the only thing I am against and very intrusive of pop-up adverts. Probably too advanced and less amusing to children of my target age group.

Planets, the game explains the features of the planets by talking for example: I am earth the blue planet, then the EARTH will become thirsty and will turn light brown.

The player needs to direct the water hose to water the planet Earth which then makes Earth blue again. Simple tasks to keep the child’s attention/interest. The art style is children friendly giving the planets eyes mouth and arms to make them look and act similar to a human’s face.

As head of Disney Interactive Labs, your first big initiative was a video site that launched in May. What’s special about the site? Our goal was to experiment around a couple areas: personalization and curation. Our audience is broad; we reach kids, tweens, adults and enthusiasts. There’s so much content on Disney today; there’s an opportunity to curate that in a family-friendly, safe way. We announced a partnership with YouTube to make Disney an everyday entertainment destination. That’s acknowledging the overall trend toward participation.

What age group or groups did you have in mind for the site? I can see how it’s parent approved, but will older kids want to go to a site that their little brother and sister are also watching?That’s something we’re very focused on. You’ll begin to see us personalize the site, in two ways. The first is implicit. The end of every video recommends people to the next video based on what we believe editorially makes sense. The second way is explicit, through a user name and password that a person enters. We’ve heard a lot of feedback that kids and tweens don’t want to be talked down to. That’s why you don’t see a kids version of sites. And for audiences over 13, Facebook fans will be able to use that information to personalize the experience.

What protections are you going to have in place to protect kids? We expect to work with Coppa to make sure anyone under 13 is protected from advertising or [use of] any information that could identify them. There isn’t anything we can do to ensure people can’t lie about their age, but we’re working on that. Our goal is that if a user is honest about their age, we can tailor all experiences to the audience. That would be the holy grail — to have an age-appropriate experience for our guests.

What have you learned about audience and consumption trends that fed back into the design of the site? We’ve seen consumption on tablets grow significantly, and 12 percent of tweens already own their own tablet. We’re seeing that consumption is twice what it is on smartphones and twice what it is on the desktop. It’s really becoming the primary screen for this age group. I think one of the most terrifying pieces of data is that by 2014, mobile usage will outstrip desktops. We’ve taken a mobile-first approach, so video is the best possible on those screens. We wanted to make sure we were creating an experience that was consistent with those platforms.

Before Disney, you headed up sports and games for Yahoo. It sounds like you’ve led a charmed life. I get a lot of jokes about the perks changing from having access to the Super Bowl to going to Disneyland for free. I’ve used my silver pass a few times to take some nieces. I got to tell you, I don’t know how parents do it. I got a long way to go to have the patience to navigate the challenge of a whole day at the park.

As much as kids today know about technology, do you ever learn anything from them? I like to think I’m on the cutting edge, but that’s not to say guests don’t surprise you. I’ll give you one example, and [our PR person] is going to cringe, but we’ve been developing some new user experiences where guests are able to interact with objects within the site. We’re looking at making the experience more engaging for kids who can’t type by letting them drag an object into the search bar. During testing, a kid was saying, “This is great — you can throw Buzz Lightyear into the trash!”

At the moment, Samsung s7 line can be connected with the Virtual reality device and play games with it. Temple run is one of the most successful mobile games up to date and can now be played in virtual reality mode. I have played Temple run in virtual reality mode and it felt so amazing that enables you to look to your surroundings while running. The monsters that are chasing you can be seen when you look behind you and it makes it even more exciting.

Interactivity – adds excitement, fear or any other emotions to the player.

Pokemon Go wristband

This device enables the players to catch pokemons without looking at their mobile phone.

When a pokemon appears, the device will vibrate and flash green light.

If the Pokémon is a species you haven’t caught before, your Pokémon GO Plus will vibrate, and its light will flash yellow. But Poke Balls will be used not the Great and Ultra Balls.

Pressing the Pokemon GO plus button then will automatically attempt to catch the pokemon.

The light on your Pokémon GO Plus will pulsate white for a while as it attempts to catch the Pokémon.

The average human takes in 70% of the information that they can see and hear, yet only around 20% of what they see and only 30% of what they hear (Killer Video Facts). That kind of statistic makes long lectures and heavy textbooks seem pretty obsolete as teaching materials, especially when compared to the powerful communication skills video has to offer.

Introduce the Video to Your Students

Video might be a great communication tool, but you can’t rely on video alone to teach your students. Before you screen your video production introduce the issues surrounding the subject of your video and contextualise the content for your class. By giving this short intro you can ensure your class is prepared for the topic at hand and you can make sure the video content is as accessible as possible for all of your students.

View the Video
Having introduced the video content and the topic it is addressing to your students you should be able to screen the entire production without interruption. If any student needs to ask a question about the subject matter on screen be sure to stop the video and explain the content thoroughly, but always try to refrain from having too many breaks from the production. Having constant interruptions will break the class’s concentration and the engagement with the video content will be lost. A good way to maintain focus from your students is to give them mentally stimulating tasks to carry out during the videos duration.

Reflect and Discuss the Content of the Video
Try and plan the screening of your video to allow enough time for a thought provoking discussion after it has finished. If you can encourage class debate and reflection on the topics expressed in the video you can ensure the class is solidifying the knowledge they have just taken in. If you are screening a video towards the end of the day (a typically difficult time to teach) give your students a short simple task to carry out at home to be returned for the next session to make sure the messages of the video have been understood thoroughly.

Summary
Video can be a thoroughly useful tool in the educational sphere and its abilities to connect with a wide audience and express complicated topics to that audience easily, should always be made use of. By using video productions alongside your traditional teaching methods you can help to instil a better knowledge and understanding of a subject within all of your students.

Been reading few articles about how to teach children the solar system.

IDEAS:

Fruit can be used to represent the comparative size of the planets, which planet would be a watermelon, a grapefruit, a blueberry, a large apple, a peppercorn and a small orange? Which two would be cherry tomatoes?

As a homework task, ask pupils to find out an interesting fact about one of the planets and add this information to a learning wall.

How to teach space and the solar system; https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/sep/29/how-to-teach-space-planets-astronomy-solar-system; 11/10/2016

TEACHERS USING SUBTITLED VIDEO AS A TEACHING AID IN THE CLASSROOM GAIN MANY BENEFITS INCLUDING GREATER STUDENT INTEREST AND IMPROVED READING AND LITERACY SKILLS.

As educators, our aim is to get students energized and engaged in the hands-on learning process, and video is clearly an instructional medium that is compelling and generates a much greater amount of interest and enjoyment than the more traditional printed material. Using sight and sound, video is the perfect medium for students who are auditory or visual learners. With the added use of subtitles each child then has the choice to watch, listen to, or read each presentation. Video stimulates and engages students creating interest and maintaining that interest for longer periods of time, and it provides an innovative and effective means for educators to address and deliver the required curriculum content.

VIDEO CREATES AN EXPERIENCE

The benefits of using video in education includes providing a sensory experience that allows concepts and ideas to actually become an experience and come to life as students are guided through each adventure.

VIDEO AS A FLEXIBLE TEACHING MEDIUM

The more interested and engaged students are, and the more interactive each learning session is, the more students will enjoy, learn from and retain information from the lesson. Can pause or rewind which helps the students to analyse and process what they are being taught on.